Today we do only a short walk however it was fairly steep due to the altitude gain, today is all about getting acclimatised, altitude sickness is a major reason why people do not summit, vomiting, pounding headache and general feeling of being unwell are all too common. A few of our group now are in bed sick - our porters have Diamox a drug to help with this so fingers crossed they get better soon.

We arrive in camp at lunch time and go for our acclimatisation hike, 40 mins up a steep climb and wait around for a bit in order to help with the climb high and sleep low theory

. This allows you to get to higher altitude but come back down and sleep lowers in a more oxygen rich environment to help your body adjust to the altitude.

Its really cold now but finally we get to see Kilimanjaro summit. Most of the time when we climb its hidden in the clouds, first thing in the morning and last thing at night we sometimes get to see it.

We are all usually asleep in bed by 9.30pm exhausted and its sooooo cold outside that you cant wait to get to sleep. My hired sleeping bag that is supposed to be up to -29C has clearly been overused and its not even keeping me warm at -2C even sleeping with all my layers on - to say I am annoyed would be putting it mildly, it seems they have lots of other groups on the mountain and we have been left with the shitty bits of kit, the tents are too small you cant get your legs stretched out and they are more for a summers day camping that freezing temperatures up a mountain. The biggest challenge tonight is with the kit we have been provided with not the fact of climbing a mountain - slightly annoying but since we are half way up a mountain not a lot can be done about it. One of our team had a spare "light" sleeping bag so now I have the job of trying to cram myself into 2 sleeping bags just to sleep !!!!! NOT AMUSED - rant over!